


lucky i'm in love (with my best friend)

by friarlucas



Series: 12 days of ficmas ( 2018 ) [3]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, the epitome of childhood friends to lovers huh, they are riverdale huh... yeah..., this is unapologetically sentimental and fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 12:17:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17059640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friarlucas/pseuds/friarlucas
Summary: “Oh, little Archie, we’re too young,” she says simply, as if that’s the consideration he overlooked. As if that’s the only thing that would keep her from giving him her future. So she gives him a promise instead. “Ask me when we’re eighteen, and I’ll say yes.”Eighteen feels like lightyears away, but Archie decides he can wait. He wants her in his life forever, and if he has to wait a little bit of that time to make it a guarantee then he will. He’s never liked rushing into the future anyway, so they’ll take the journey at their own pace.As long as he has Betty Cooper, efficiency is a non-necessity. That much, he can say for certain.--AKA, four times Archie feels like he doesn't know (about the world, himself, everything really) and the one time he knows for certain.





	lucky i'm in love (with my best friend)

**Author's Note:**

> For Ficmas, day 5, enjoy my first ever little tribute to my favorite Riverdale duo. I have no hope for them on the show, but they're together in my heart.
> 
> "I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend, lucky to have been where I have been, lucky to be coming home again.  
> Lucky we're in love in every way, lucky to have stayed where we have stayed, lucky to be coming home someday." -- Colbie Caillat & Jason Mraz, _Lucky_

Archie Andrews is eight years old, and he doesn’t know a thing about math.

He’s pretty miffed about the whole scenario to be quite honest, as he doesn’t see why they had to go and make math so complicated anyway. He understands why it’s important, he understands the need for the basics—but he can count, he can add, and he can make change if he takes the extra minute to double check the coins, so why did the world decide that multiplication was a necessity? More to the point, a necessity he absolutely needs to know or else he’ll be trapped in the third grade forever?

“Efficiency!” his teacher exclaims when he’s finally bold enough to question it aloud, giving him a fond little laugh and going on to explain all of the reasons multiplication—and every obnoxiously confusing concept that comes after it—are very important things. Algebra becomes calculus, and calculus helps build new technologies, and all of these concepts rely on the efficiency of multiplication to operate. “With efficiency, we speed towards progress and the future at a far better pace.”

Well, Archie is perfectly fine with his current pace, thank you very much. All of the mathematical queries she’s promised him will come in the future make him wonder if maybe staying in third grade forever is the right move, and he’s not exactly keen to go rushing into the future like everyone else seems to be.

The future is uncertain, and he’s not a fan of the uncertain. That’s why he loves Riverdale so much, where everything is comfortable and familiar and seemingly stuck in some decade torn between the present and a rosy past.

He’s content to forget about math and let it just be another thing he doesn’t know, until the teacher decides his reluctance to learn it signals a deeper mental immaturity and goes to the principal. As she sees it, if he cannot pull together a good enough grasp of the concepts before their final unit test, then she’ll have to recommend that he get held back a year and repeat the third grade.

While he’s a bit offended at the notion that his dislike of math means he’s immature, he’s more overwhelmed by the fact that he might very well be corralled into third grade for the rest of eternity. He’s so overwhelmed he’s pushed into a sense of ennui, willing to just let the inevitable happen and consume him with inaction.

Lucky for him, he has Betty Cooper. And she’s never been one for inaction.

When his parents tell her parents while taking out the trash that night and word predictably drifts back to her, Betty is absolutely determined not to let him get held back a year. They’re supposed to do everything together, she reminds him, as they promised one another one afternoon on his porch when they were too young to hang out anywhere or do much else. The possibility of them not being in the same grade is unacceptable.

“We will make sure you pass this test,” Betty declares, little blonde ponytail bobbing as she nods her head enthusiastically. “We will study and study and study until you know multiplication better than you know the menu at Pop’s.”

As he’s always known, Betty Cooper is as good as her word. She dedicates so much of her time to him it almost seems unfair. They spend lunches going over concepts, Betty breaking the school rule of sitting with her class to join him at Miss Applebee’s table. The afternoons they used to spend riding their bikes or watching television in the cozy Andrews living room they now spend at the dining room table, doing practice problems and Betty carefully checking every single answer and walking him through the ones he gets wrong.

For all their hard work, it ultimately pays off. Archie manages to wrap his brain around multiplication just in time to ace the test, thrilling Miss Applebee and guaranteeing him passage into fourth grade.

He wants to thank Betty, but he has no idea how he could possibly repay her. All he knows is that she’s his best friend, he doesn’t know what he would do without her, and he wants her in his life forever. He never, ever wants her to leave. The only version of love he knows like that is his mother and father, who are married and kiss to express their devotion.

So that’s what he does. When Betty and Archie meet outside to wait for their carpool he darts over and gives her a kiss, wrapping her in a tight hug and burying her with thank yous before he asks her to marry him.

Betty is tickled, her cheeks pink and smile bright. But rather than accepting his proposal she simply giggles, shaking her head and touching his shoulder affectionately.

“Oh, little Archie, we’re too young,” she says simply, as if that’s the consideration he overlooked. As if that’s the only thing that would keep her from giving him her future. So she gives him a promise instead. “Ask me when we’re eighteen, and I’ll say yes.”

Eighteen feels like lightyears away, but Archie decides he can wait. He wants her in his life forever, and if he has to wait a little bit of that time to make it a guarantee then he will. He’s never liked rushing into the future anyway, so they’ll take the journey at their own pace.

As long as he has Betty Cooper, efficiency is a non-necessity. That much, he can say for certain.

* * *

Archie Andrews is sixteen years old, and he doesn’t know a thing about the world.

He thought he understood it, at least to some degree. As far as his hometown and the people who populate it, he felt as though he had a solid grasp on what life was going to be like and how fate might toss him around before setting him up where he belongs. Even when the dark underbelly of Riverdale began to reveal itself as he and his friends picked apart their classmate’s gruesome murder, he still felt like the world was right side up.

Waiting at the hospital, gunfire still ringing in his ears and covered in his father’s blood, Archie realizes he doesn’t know a damn thing. The world is upside down, and it’s colder and darker than he ever believed it could be. He’s not sure it’s a world he wants to live in.

Especially if his father isn’t there to brave it with him. If Fred Andrews doesn’t make it out of this alive, then Archie feels as though he’s going to die right alongside him.

But he doesn’t know how to articulate any of this, so he sticks to sitting in pained silence in the hospital waiting room and begging some higher power for answers.

Veronica is there for him, of course. She sits vigil at his side for an admirable amount of time, resting her head on his shoulder and rubbing his back and trying to get him to talk about it. Talking through problems is how Ronnie likes to tackle them, so she attempts a few different maneuvers to prompt him into opening up. But he doesn’t have the words, and he’s honestly not even sure he remembers how to speak at all. So all of her attempts lead to nowhere, leaving the two of them blanketed in the impatient silence of wanting answers.

Jughead is in and out, torn between being there for his best friend and on the prowl for clues as to how this could’ve happened. Much like his next door neighbor, Archie knows Jughead is a man of action, and being stranded in a position with so little options is near claustrophobic for him. He can sit around and contemplate the state of affairs for hours so long as he’s merely a passive observer. The moment the chaos reaches his loved ones, Jughead is out of his usual booth at Pop’s and on the war path faster than any of them can say “Jingle Jangle.” True to the nature of a serpent, slithering and observing under the radar until he’s provoked into striking.

Suffice to say, he’s not able to spend more than a few minutes at a time in the confines of the bland hospital waiting area. So he’ll pop in to check for updates, before he grabs his camera and shrugs on his flannel and hits the ground running for another potential lead.

Archie isn’t surprised by the amount of people who come through expressing condolences. His father is a staple of Riverdale, one of their best, and the impact he’s left on the lives of its residents does not go unnoticed. The amount of Bulldogs and boys from his class who come through hoping to hear good news is testament enough, a showing of how many young men Fred has acted as a father towards in the boundary of Riverdale.

Of course, no one knows this better than Betty Cooper.

When Veronica isn’t there, Betty switches out and takes her place by his side. To her credit, she has years of knowing Archie under her belt and so she seems to understand how to act around him better than anybody else in a situation like this. She offers distractions at just the right time, showing him an intriguing magazine article just as the walls begin to feel like they’re closing in. She provides him updates on anything she and Jug have been able to dig up in such a short amount of time, offering him just the right helping of hope to assuage the anxiety. She allows the silence to be soothing rather than suffocating, remembering well that some days, Archie simply doesn’t feel like he has the words to speak any more.

More than anything, she promises him that they’re going to get to the bottom of whoever hurt his family. She locks eyes with him, that usual Cooper determination burning in her green eyes, and verbally devotes all of her unfathomable drive towards discovering the truth.

“We’re going to find who did this, Arch,” she vows, voice strained with the intensity of it. “We’re going to find them, and then we’re going to make sure they pay.”

Betty has always been as good as her word. So he simply nods, choosing to believe her and hoping some of that ambition to persevere will translate to his father in the ICU as well.

In the few days after the shooting, once he’s washed the blood out of his clothes and his father slips into stable condition rather than toeing the lines between life and death, Betty is the only one who seems to remember that the event happened in the first place. He wakes up more than one morning with a check-in text message from her, asking if he’s feeling okay and if he wants her to bring anything on their walk to school. Every night before bed, when he’s sitting at his desk staring out the window and wondering when his house is going to stop feeling so empty, she makes a point of meeting his eyes from across the way and giving him an encouraging smile. Making herself available, seeing if there’s anything he needs before they head to bed and kick off another day of powering through in the morning.

He never asks her for anything—what else could he possibly want from her, anyway, when she already offers him everything she has—but he knows without a doubt that if he asked her to, she’d be there in a heartbeat. He believes that of all of his friends, but he knows Betty would better than he seems to know anything else.

Even when he feels like he doesn’t know a damn thing, he has Betty Cooper. The one who promised him they’d do everything together, and thus won’t let him suffer through the darkness of this new world alone.

* * *

Archie Andrews is eighteen years old, and he doesn’t know a thing about relationships.

As far as he understands it, love is supposed to be enough. If you care about someone deeply enough and want things to work out, then they will. Nothing is stronger than the dedication you put into the ones you love, and if you allow that to guide you then nothing can go wrong.

He’s proven inept yet again when he and Veronica break up the week before she heads off to New York for college, leaving the small-town charm of Riverdale behind to pursue her bigger and grander ambitions.

It’s not exactly a surprise when it finally happens. The two of them had been arguing on and off about their college plans since the end of junior year, inadvertently debating the paths that each of them wanted to take.

Veronica had always been destined for greatness, meant to return to the glitz and glamour of the big city where a personality like hers could thrive. With two successful businesses already under her belt and the defeat of her corrupt father backing her moral standing, there wasn’t a university that wasn’t itching to snatch her up.

Archie still wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life, and he certainly didn’t have the money to go out of state without a really impressive scholarship. Even with his extracurricular activities and glowing recommendations, his grades have always only been so-so and the prison mishap acts as a particularly glaring blemish on an otherwise harmless application. Sure, the whole thing can be explained away with a few questions or two, but many prestigious institutions aren’t wasting their time to investigate such a risky candidate when there’s hundreds of other more remarkable applicants stacked on their desk anyway.

So not long into the application process, Archie puts any flashier ambitions on the backburner and decides to enroll in classes at the local community college. It’s affordable, not a bad education, and will give him time to figure out what exactly it is he wants to do with his future. Music still calls to him in a way that feels more genuine than anything else, but he’s going to need time to reconnect with that part of himself after everything else he’s endured in the last few years. Mostly, he doesn’t want to waste thousands of his father’s hard-earned dollars to soul search at a fancy institution when the education is just as decent at Riverdale Community College.

This is where the frustration between the two of them really begins to fester. Because Veronica looks at Archie and sees all the potential in the world, and his choice to settle for community college feels like he’s giving up before he’s even started. Archie looks at his choices and doesn’t feel as though he’s settling for anything, following in the same proud footsteps of his father and giving himself the chance to do something he cares about when he’s ready.

They argue about the financial angle, which Veronica eagerly states she’ll pay for without hesitation. But this only frustrates Archie more, because she can never seem to understand that he doesn’t want their partnership to involve her spending all her money while he’s just along for the ride. Jughead has a very particular rule about accepting charity, never allowing himself to end up owing someone more than he can repay lest they end up owning him. And while Archie always found his friend pointedly cynical and perhaps a little bit paranoid when they were younger, now that he’s grown a few more years and is facing that very dilemma himself, he suddenly seems to understand it.

He doesn’t think Veronica would ever go so far as to own him. But he hates feeling like he owes her insurmountable debt, and he can’t stomach the idea of spending the rest of his life dominated by dollar signs that he never has to confront on his own merit.

So the week before she leaves for New York, one final conversation results in the mutual ending of their relationship. Despite how much he cares about her, despite all of the love and support and lessons she’s given him over the years, it comes down to who they are as people and who they want to be moving forward into the future. Archie has never liked the future, and he feels that even more sharply as he realizes that he and one of his favorite people in the world are inevitably going in different directions.

It seems silly, how for all they’ve survived—murder mysteries, stints in prison, the infestation of their town with a cult that ultimately fell at the same time as her father—something as simple as their goals can be the thing that pulls them apart. Then he supposes he shouldn’t be all that surprised, as his mother and father suffered the same fate. Mary Andrews always wanted to move somewhere bigger, do something more, and Fred Andrews wanted nothing more than to stay where it felt like home. Where he was certain he belonged.

Veronica is destined to something more, something brilliant, Archie knows. So the best he can do is let her go and set her free, able to spread her wings and soar as high and far as she wishes.

Still, it doesn’t make the sting of it hurt any less.

Jughead prepares to attend school for creative writing all the way until that same week, suddenly deferring his acceptance and deciding he’s going to stay in the Southside to manage the Serpents. It’s always been his path, he argues, and he points out that he can be a writer whether or not he spends thousands of dollars on schooling for it or not.

While Archie is grateful not all of his friends will be floating away from him, he can’t help but feel as though Jughead is wasting his gift. Then he feels like a hypocrite, knowing very well how it feels to want to hold off on such a big jump so soon. To want the world to slow down so he can get another second to figure things out, seconds which the universe purportedly doesn’t have to give away.

While he feels as though he understands, Betty doesn’t see Jughead’s point of view so easily. The two of them have a major fight just as Archie is sending Veronica off free as a bird, leaving both of them in uneven states when they return home. Although she’s making herself busy by finishing up her own packing, Archie can see the way she’s wiping at her eyes through their windows. His phone is in his hands and typing a message before he knows it.

_Need to talk?_

Within the next five minutes Archie is letting Betty in through the back door, sneaking her upstairs to hide away in his bedroom where they can talk in relative peace. What starts as a civil conversation about packing for college quickly dissolves into tearful confessions, concerns about their relationships and their friendships and the unpredictable nature of the future. Once Betty’s in tears it’s only a matter of minutes before Archie feels his own resolve cracking, unable to ignore the pain in his chest from an unanticipated goodbye and the ache of his shoulder blades from the mounting anxiety threatening to crush him as the future seems to inch closer and closer by the day.

“I just feel like he’s trapped, Arch,” Betty whimpers, wiping her tears on her sleeve and huffing out a sigh. She sniffles, tilting her head back against his bed from where they’re seated on the floor. “I know the Serpents are his family, but he never wanted it. He never wanted to be in control of it, and now it feels like that’s all he can do. Like he’s so afraid of rejection he’s painted the Serpents into the only option he has to be accepted.”

Archie ruffles his hair, hating the way his throat hurts from crying. He shrugs. “Maybe I’m not the person to talk to about this. According to Veronica, I’m doing the same thing. Settling for less because I’m too scared to pursue what I really want to do. Or could do. I don’t know.”

“But it’s not the same,” she disagrees. She tilts her head at him, ponytail looser than usual and resting plaintively against her shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with community college. Especially when—I mean, what do you want to do, Arch?”

He shrugs again, voice cracking and threatening another round of tears. These he knows are from fear, so Veronica might be right about a thing or two. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Exactly. And that’s perfectly fine.” Betty reaches out and touches his arm, wrapping her fingers around his wrist and giving him a reassuring squeeze. “It’s so okay to not know what you want to do. That’s a perfectly good reason to go to community college and take that time to figure it out.”

Somehow, just hearing the words aloud from someone else feels like a weight off his shoulders. The genuine care in her expression helps too. He exhales a laugh even though nothing is particularly funny, nodding along and wiping his eyes.

She runs her thumb along the back of his hand. “I’ll talk to Veronica once she settles in at school. I’m sure everything is all heightened and overwhelming right now, but I doubt she’ll stay upset with you for very long. And I mean… this wasn’t the kind of break-up that requires mediation, was it? Do you still want her in your life?”

It’s not even a question. Even if the idealistic romantic fantasy he’d daydreamed about since the day he met her didn’t pan out as he hoped, Archie loves so many things about Veronica. He greatly admires her passion, her drive, her insatiable ambition and how clever she is. He supposes they weren’t meant to be, but he knows for a fact that they’re still meant to be in each other’s lives. More than just his lover, she was also his friend. And he doesn’t want to lose that for good, if he can help it.

“Definitely,” he sighs. “Ronnie is amazing. You know that.”

“I sure do.”

“She’s a great person. And a great friend. If I could still have her in my life, I’d—,”

“Consider it done,” Betty says, already cataloguing the task as her next great Archie-related endeavor. She nudges his shoulder. “I doubt it’ll be a very difficult negotiation. V is crazy about you and all your boy-next-door charm, you know that. I’m sure once she licks her wounds and adjusts to the new normal, she’ll be more than happy to have you back in her circle. She’s probably fighting the same worries you are right now, wondering if this goodbye to your romance means goodbye forever. And won’t you both be relieved to discover your story is far from over.”

It’s odd, to hear that phrase and remember how inversely it was uttered only a few years ago. How Veronica was the one assuring him his story with Betty was far from over, promising him that their friendship would still be in tact before all was said and done. And to her credit, she was correct—it’s Betty who’s been by his side unabashedly since they were children, still sitting by his side and holding his hand today.

Betty Cooper, his best friend who always promised him they’d get through everything together. Who promised him when they turned eighteen, if he asked her to marry him she’d say yes.

Nothing about her has changed, but he’s starting to wonder if maybe he’s the one who’s changed. Because now that he’s looking at her, with everything they’ve been through and everything he’s learned, he can’t help but wonder if she’d still say yes.

Then he swallows the notion, burying it down deep with the hurt over Veronica and his fear of the future. Because she’s still with Jughead, and he’s still reeling over his very own break-up. It’s not the time to be thinking about the future, about ridiculous possibilities for a relationship when he doesn’t even understand the ones he does have.

For now, he’s grateful that she’s still with him at all. That she’s his friend, and that she’s never let him down before.

“Maybe I should stay with you,” she says distantly, gazing at the wall opposite them but her mind a million miles away.

Archie frowns, turning his head to stare at her. “What? What are you talking about?”

“Community college,” she explains. “It would certainly be easier, wouldn’t it? Going somewhere you know you have allies. It would definitely save my mother some money, and she’s still trying to pay off all those issues from the Farm. I’m sure I could learn as much as I would anywhere else, and it would allow me to be near Jug while he’s working out the Serpents—,”

Now, it’s Betty who is trying to play it safe. Only her circumstances are far different from him or Jughead—Betty has an indisputable goal. She’s been accepted to one of the top journalism schools in the country, and the whole world of opportunity is just waiting for her to step up and take it by storm. Inaction has never been her strong suit, and Archie can’t imagine her passing all of it up to meander for two more years.

This time, it’s his turn to lift her up.

“No way, Betty.” When she looks at him, frown forming on her face, he speaks quickly to beat her brain to whatever negative conclusions it’s drawing. “Jughead and I are staying here because we don’t know what we want to do with our futures. You and Veronica, you know exactly what you’re meant to do. And evidently you’re right, because colleges see it too. You can’t pass that up just to wait around for the two of us.”

Her face scrunches into a pained smile, forcefully working to hold back the tears. It doesn’t work, a few slipping down her cheeks.

“I know we’ve always done everything together, but this is something you need to do on your own. And you can, I know you can.” He locks eyes with her, pouring as much sincerity into his gaze as he can muster. “I’ve been lucky enough to have you my entire life, but I always knew I was going to have to share you. Because the world needs Betty Cooper. So don’t keep them waiting while you wait for us to catch up.”

Betty exhales, wiping her tears and managing a choked laugh of her own. Archie reaches out and drapes his arm around her shoulders, pulling her into a hug that she gratefully accepts. She slouches against his torso, laying her head on his shoulder and sniffling.

“I’ll come home for Thanksgiving,” she says optimistically.

“And Christmas,” Archie agrees. “Maybe even spring break, if you don’t find something much cooler to do. And Jughead and I are going to be right here when you come back. It’ll probably be like you never even left.”

She sighs, a watery smile gracing her lips. “Wouldn’t be coming home without you. Wouldn’t be Riverdale without Archie Andrews.”

He wonders if she realizes how much of that reality is colored by the presence of her in his life. There’s no Riverdale without Archie Andrews, but there’s no Archie Andrews without Betty Cooper.

It might be the only relationship he understands without a doubt.

* * *

Archie Andrews is twenty-two years old, and he doesn’t know a thing about himself.

College was supposed to be the time when he would figure everything out, when all of the mysteries that still remained about himself and his future would unfold in due time and give him an unmistakable sense of clarity. But two years at community college turned into three, and while he definitely saved his family money in the long run he graduated with as little perception of how he wants to spend the rest of his life as he had when he entered college.

So he steps into the workforce instead, learning the ropes of his father’s business while his friends are finishing their senior year of college. It’s hard not to feel like a failure when he compares himself to Veronica making strides in New York or Josie jet setting through Los Angeles, so he ends up deleting his social media. For the people who actually want to keep in contact with him, he knows they have his number.

One of those people is Veronica, who he’s thankful to still have in his life as a dear friend nearly four years after their break-up. He doesn’t see them ever getting back together—she’s so happy and thriving with her hustle and bustle life upstate, and he knows he’d never be satisfied with that kind of life—but he knows she’s his first love and he’s always going to be a little bit enthralled with her. In that sense, it’s so easy to be happy for her as she takes the business world by storm and steps out of the shadow her father left behind.

Jughead, on the other hand, takes a delayed start towards the college route and ends up applying a couple of years after deciding to stay home. Although he feels tied to the Serpents and doesn’t want to leave them behind, conversations with Archie and Fred while hanging out in the garage or working in the family business reveal that he feels as though he missed out on more than he anticipated.

This doesn’t surprise Archie at all—Jughead has always been his most intellectual friend, obsessed with the analytical and looking at numerous subjects with a magnifying glance and from multiple perspectives. College is the exact place to do that, and after writing a compelling essay about his struggle to balance family obligations—he figures writing “gang” on college application won’t go over well—with his own ambitions, he’s able to scrounge together his fair share of scholarships to help him pursue just that.

Of course, the journey to this decision doesn’t come without consequences. The distance between Betty and Jughead didn’t do much to serve their relationship, and they end up breaking their romantic relationship during her second year of undergrad. Despite how rocky the transition is for them at first, such a drastic shift in the status quo is part of what pushes him to realize there are things about his life he’s dissatisfied with anyway. Much like Archie and Veronica, the two of them manage to rebuild their friendship in the aftermath to everyone’s relief.

Betty hears about his decision to return to school from Archie, who is curious to know if such a change of heart will encourage her to suggest they get back together. Although she’s proud of Jughead and excited to see how his writing improves with the help of a structured program, she dispels any speculation about their relationship rekindling itself.

“I’ve been in a relationship since I was fifteen, Arch. Do you realize that?” Betty’s tone is thoughtful as they video call, reflective as she so often is. “You and I, we’ve been sharing our lives with someone else for all of our adolescence. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a little time to just be myself. Act for myself, you know?”

He does understand. He didn’t realize it until she said it, but there is a nice freedom to being so young and not having anyone to report to except for himself. It gives him the chance to pursue his varied interests, and Betty’s lack of distraction allows her to make real impacts on her college campus through activism and investigative journalism.

Yet when the time comes for him to know what he wants to do, when people start asking him what his plans are when they run into him at Fred’s business or the grocery store, he still finds his mind numbingly blank. It’s his least favorite question, one that he has no clear answers to offer in response.

He knows he still loves music, however, so he convinces the music shop down the street to allow him to start giving guitar lessons three times a week. It’s a part-time gig to supplement the work at his dad’s business, but he finds himself loving it. Not only because it’s music and he’s always enjoyed that, but because there’s something about seeing a student learn something new and accomplish something they never thought they could do that lights a fire in him he’s never experienced before.

Purpose. That’s how Betty describes it when he excitedly tells her about it after the first mini-talent show they hold for all the young students and their proud parents. He’s found a passion that makes him feel fulfilled, and she claims it doesn’t surprise her at all that teaching is where his truest heart rests.

Needless to say, his guitar and singing lessons grow in popularity after that. And as he’s debating possibly going back to school for education, Betty returns to Riverdale and takes over her mother’s paper in the building right next door.

Archie spends the summer helping her tidy up the space, having fallen into disrepair after everything Alice Cooper went through the past few years. They brighten up the space, redecorate it with a floral and pastel feel that is decidedly more Betty than anything Archie thinks he’s ever seen. As they work late nights giving the office life again, Betty asks him all about his self-discoveries and what he thinks he might want to do next. She endlessly encourages his interest in teaching and even volunteers to help him write his applications to Riverdale University.

Better late than never, after all. It wouldn’t take much longer considering all the basic credits he already has, and he’s always preferred to take things at his own pace.

The night that they officially deem Betty’s rendition of the Riverdale Register ready for print, Fred comes by with some take-out from Pop’s to celebrate the occasion. When he steps inside he makes a show of nearly passing out from shock.

“The place looks great, Betty,” he compliments as Archie takes the food from his hands, setting it up on the main desk. “So much better than when your mom was running the place.”

“Now, now,” she says playfully, hopping onto what she claimed as her desk and crossing her legs. “It’s not better, simply different. A new era of The Register to represent a new generation of Riverdale.”

“That it is, that it is.”

“You hanging around, dad?” Archie asks, unwrapping one of the burgers and passing it in Betty’s direction. She takes it and gives him a smile in return. “Sure we could find a way to put you to work.”

Fred looks between the two of them, a light smile gracing his face before he waves them off. “Oh, no, think I best get back home. If you’re going to be here late doing all this important journalism business, I should spend time with Vegas so he doesn’t think we’ve abandoned him in his old age.”

“Vegas,” Betty remarks, recognition coloring her features. She exhales through her lips, eyes widening. “How is Vegas? How old is he now?”

“Just turned 10 last month.”

Betty shakes her head, taking a pointed sip of her strawberry milkshake. “God, time flies. Doesn’t it?”

“That it does,” Fred agrees. He gives Archie a pat on the shoulder, nodding towards Betty as he makes his way towards the door. “I’ll be looking forward to your first edition, Miss Cooper.”

“I’ll try not to disappoint,” she says cheerfully, tilting her head and raising her milkshake in mock cheers.

Archie grins as his father heads out, the bell above the door jingling brightly. It is remarkable, how a little work and a little time can completely change the atmosphere of a place. The Register used to be so marred by the history that took place within it, with its shattered windows and family betrayals. Yet all it took was a some dedication and a declaration of devotion from Betty Cooper to whip it back into shape.

Then, Archie supposes, she brightens every room she steps into. He’s known that for as long as he’s known her.

She hums as a thought hits her, holding up a finger and chewing her burger as quickly as possible so she can get the thought out before it escapes her. “That reminds me, speaking of the first issue—,”

She hops off her desk, pulling up a chair from the other table and gesturing him towards her. He follows her lead, awkwardly taking the seat across from her as she jumps into her rolling chair and pulls out a pad of paper.

“Archie Andrews,” she says excitedly, grabbing a pen and bopping it against the desktop to expose the ink tip. “I want you to be the feature of our first edition.”

He nearly chokes on his French fries. “Huh?”

“Oh, don’t act so surprised,” Betty chides, pressing the end of the pen to her lips. “Although, it is that modest charm that makes you so irresistible. Especially to the readers of Riverdale of which you are so universally beloved.”

He tries to ignore the way his stomach flips when she calls him irresistible. There’s not enough brain power in the world to help him parse through that. “Who would want to read about me? I’ve been here doing nothing for four years. You should ask Veronica, she’s done so much. Or Josie, her career is really taking off in Los Angeles. Even Jug—,”

“The Riverdale Register isn’t about the rest of the world, they can read that in any major paper or mobile device,” she argues. “The Register is about Riverdale, and the people who inhabit it. It’s a local paper for a local population, and I intend to honor that as long as I’m running it.”

She reaches out and gently touches his wrist, waiting for him to meet her eyes. He’s always known how determined they could be, but what he neglected to realize is how difficult they can be to tear away from. Now that she’s captured his attention, he’s not sure he’s ever going to be able to look away.

“You are Riverdale, Arch. Your father was before you, and now you’ve taken up the helm. I mean, you taught half of the children in town to play the guitar—well, might I add. You’re always the first show up when disaster strikes, and you’ve helped fix more flat tires and broken carburetors than I can count. And by the looks of it, it won’t be too long until you’re returning Riverdale High to its former glory and changing the lives of every student who’s lucky enough to meet you.”

He feels his cheeks flush. “Please.”

“Who cares if you never jetted off to a grand city or won yourself a Nobel prize. When people pass by the Register and see your face on the front page, that’s what is going to prompt them to buy an issue. To read more about you, the most beloved citizen of our dearly beloved town.” She beams, ponytail swinging as she tilts her head. “If it were me, I know I’d buy that paper in a heartbeat.”

He ends up agreeing to the article, and the Register sells out completely during its first week back in circulation. Betty gloats about it all week along, elbowing him in the ribs whenever they spot someone reading the feature and teasing him about his humble attitude whenever the opportunity presents itself.

He doesn’t know why he agreed to it. Perhaps because it’s Betty, and she’s impossible to say no to when she uses the puppy dog eyes. Perhaps because he finally feels like he’s figuring himself out, and he wants to tell the whole world due to how much of a relief it is.

Or perhaps, it’s simply because Betty knows him better than he knows himself. She helped him find his way, and he supposes he owes her a favor or two. When he skims the issue himself and sees the way she writes about him, he suddenly believes that he’s half as impressive as she writes in the paper for all the town to see.

* * *

Archie Andrews is twenty-five years old, and he knows one thing without a shadow of a doubt: he is in love with Betty Cooper.

He figures a large part of it is due to the simple fact of how consistent she is in his life. Since her return to Riverdale they’ve been inseparable, spending most of the week together when they’re not busy with work and school. Seeing her is essentially part of his daily routine, and the days where he doesn’t seem noticeably duller in comparison. They somehow manage to eat dinner together almost every evening, and most weekends are spent deciding how to take advantage of their free time together by engaging in the multitude of hobbies they both enjoy by virtue of growing up in the same town with the same slate of activities to participate in.

Then, he admits, an equal part of his infatuation is undeniably due to her bright smile, and infectious laugh, and sparkling green eyes that never back down from a challenge. When he graduates from RU with his degree in education she’s right there in the front row with his parents, cheering him on and lauding his achievements without even realizing how much of his accomplishments are because of her. How deeply she’s impacted his life, kept him going when he didn’t know where to turn or what to do.

He’s always been very lucky to have Betty Cooper in his life. Only now, he recognizes exactly how lucky and exactly how much he wants her there. Much like the way he felt when he was eight years old, he never wants her to leave.

That’s why it’s such a shock when she gets an offer to go write for a major newspaper in New York, evidently getting pulled in the same grand directions as the rest of their friends. Betty was always a star of Riverdale, perhaps meant to venture out and do something amazing, but selfishly he’s always enjoyed having her right by his side. Even though he told her he was willing to share, now he’s not so sure. Not when he’s grown so comfortable with the way they are with each other, a new kind of home in a way Riverdale itself can’t compete with.

She dodges his questions of whether or not she’s going to take the job, even as he’s setting up for his new job as music teacher and football coach at Riverdale High and the opportunity easily presents itself for such an announcement. She doesn’t say anything when Jughead comes to visit and do a photography piece on his hometown, the three of them meeting for lunch at Pop’s to catch up. She keeps her mouth shut even as they’re cleaning up The Register in preparation for the holiday season, closing down the presses and hanging up the festive wreath in the window of the door that indicates even journalism takes a holiday break in this town.

But he can’t take it anymore. If she’s planning to leave him behind he’ll deal with it, but the state of uncertainty is killing him. Ever since he was a child he’s hated nothing more than uncertainty, hence why the future has always been his least favorite topic.

They’re at the future now, and it’s time for things to start feeling certain. As much as he’d like to be patient for her sake, he’s never been good at that.

“Okay, Betty,” he says after putting up the faerie lights she requested he drape around the doorway. When he hops down from the step ladder and locks eyes with her, he can tell from the expression on her face that she already knows what he’s going to say. “No more putting it off. I need you to tell me what you decided.”

She tries to play dumb at first. It doesn’t work, because Betty Cooper is far from dumb, and he knows this all too well. “Decided about what, Arch?”

“Come on, Betty. Don’t do that. Just tell me.” He settles into the chair he’s sat in a thousand times, resting his arms on the back and raising his eyebrows at her. “Are you taking the job in New York?”

She hesitates for a long moment, chewing her lip as she examines him. She seems contemplative as usual, twirling the end of her ponytail on her fingers. It’s lowered in height as they’ve aged, but it still bounces with its classic volume.

“Do you think I should?”

Archie blinks. “Are you serious?”

“No, I’m just making conversation,” she jokes, giving him a look. “Yes, I’m serious. I want to know your opinion. Do you think I should take the job?”

Archie doesn’t know what to say. He can’t even make a decision for himself without turning it over in his head a million times, so he doesn’t see how he’s supposed to help her make such an important one. Of course she should take it—it’s an amazing opportunity, and Betty’s journalism is the kind of art he thinks everyone should get to experience. She could be up there with the likes of Veronica and Jughead, accomplishing brilliant things that they were seemingly born to do. Betty will flourish no matter where she is, and he knows she’d love it if she went.

But then, he wants to tell her no. He wants to tell her that for all her talk of how he represents Riverdale, it doesn’t feel much like home if she’s not there. He doesn’t want his routine to change, he doesn’t want to lose the simplicity and ease he only shares with her and the existence they’ve built with one another in the town they’ve grown up in their entire lives.

“I know there are so many reasons to go,” she elaborates, unable to take her eyes off of him. They’re wide, hopeful, waiting for him to say something he’s not sure he can offer her. He has no idea what she wants him to say, and he’s terrified of saying the wrong thing. “I just want to know if you can give me a reason to stay.”

He’s never been good with words. They’ve always failed him exactly when he needs them most, and thankfully he’s skated through most of his life without having to conjure them up in a moment they’ve decided to be absent. But if this is the moment where fate decides whether or not Betty is going to stay with him or float out of his life just like everyone else, then he can’t let her go without saying anything at all. He has to give it a shot, even if it doesn’t make a difference in the long run.

He thinks about when they were kids, when Betty looked at him with the same bright eyes and assured him that if he asked her to marry him, she’d say yes. He’s seven years late, but he’s never been great with efficiency.

“Riverdale needs you.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Riverdale?”

“Yes.” He’s already failing, but he forces himself to shoulder on regardless. “Sure, you could give all of your skills and talent to a great paper with a national readership, but they’ve already got dozens of writers like you. It’s like they’re hoarding them all, and just adding you to the collection. Riverdale, they’ve only got one Betty Cooper. And it would be a shame to lose her.”

Although he’s sure he’s not making any sense, he’s relieved to see the ghost of a smile grace her lips. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. And I know you’re always saying I’m Riverdale, but I think you’re not giving yourself nearly enough credit. You make this place what it is just as much as I do. I may be the face of a new generation according to the Register, but you’re the words behind that statement.” He feels out of breath, stumbling over his words and unable to keep track of them as they tumble out of his brain. “I’m not Riverdale, Betty. We are. You and me, together. And I don’t know—I don’t want to imagine what it’ll be like—,”

“I didn’t take the job, Arch,” she says simply, not waiting for him to finish his sentence.

He blinks, struck once again. It’s impressive, how easily she can catch him off-guard. “What?”

“I didn’t take the job,” she repeats, pushing away from her desk and wandering towards him. She takes her time, moving at her own pace. “I mean, I thought about it. And it would be an amazing opportunity. But you’re right, I feel like I have more to contribute here. Like there’s more going on for me here than anywhere else.”

Archie swallows, unable to feel the full relief of the revelation with how confused he is. He squints. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”

She’s found her way to him, standing in front of him. She hesitates, taking him in before reaching forward and adjusting his collar affectionately. She can’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know. I suppose I wanted to see what you would say. I know you wouldn’t ever… you were the one who told me I had to go out there in the first place, after all. But I suppose I wanted to see if you would stop me. If you would tell me to stay.”

Now that he knows it’s what she wanted, he finds himself unable to hold it back any longer.

“Stay.”

She laughs in spite of herself, wringing her fingers together nervously.

“Stay. Stay,” he repeats, taking her wrists into his hands and dipping his head down so she’ll meet his eyes. He feels like they’re on the verge of something big, something important, and although he has no idea what to expect he knows he doesn’t want to miss his chance.

She’s the only thing he knows for certain, and he’s willing to take endless chances to see what the future holds for the two of them. It’s the only thing he’s not afraid to explore.

Betty locks eyes with him, fondness shining through her gaze. She tilts her head, disconnecting one hand from his to rest it against his chest. “Arch…”

“Stay, Betty,” he pleads. “It’s not Riverdale without you. It’s not home without you.”

Even as he says the words, he knows how true they are. And looking into her eyes, the way they’re glimmering with that special look she’s always reserved just for him, he can tell she’s thinking exactly the same thing.

“Consider it done,” she breathes, sealing another promise to him that he knows she won’t break. Because she’s never let him down before, and he highly doubts this will be the time she chooses to break that tradition.

Gently, Archie takes her face in his hands and kisses her. Betty wastes no time in returning the embrace, operating with a sense of efficiency he’s sure Miss Applebee would be proud of.

It’s not marriage, no, but for now it’s good enough. They’ll figure out the rest, together, at their own pace. The future is daunting, but he has Betty Cooper.

Archie Andrews has Betty Cooper, and as far as he’s concerned nothing else matters.


End file.
